


Creamy Gay Facials

by bitter_crimson (Krim)



Series: Creamy Gay Facials [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-20
Updated: 2007-06-20
Packaged: 2019-10-05 20:30:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17331842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krim/pseuds/bitter_crimson
Summary: John is an aesthetician. Rodney gets his first facial ever. There are cucumbers involved.





	Creamy Gay Facials

"Mr. Rodney McKay?" says a voice from around the corner, and Rodney cranes his neck to spy a man with spiky dark hair peering at him from the open doorway.

"That's _Doctor_ Rodney McKay," Rodney corrects automatically, and the man smirks and says, " _Doctor_ McKay, then. Are you ready? I'm John."

Rodney frowns. "What?"

The corner of John's mouth twitches ever-so-slightly. "You're here for a facial, aren't you?"

"Oh," Rodney says, sounding put-out. "I thought only women worked in these spa-things."

"And I thought only women _came_ to them," John drawls sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Look, do you want the facial, or not?" but Rodney is already pulling himself out of the plush chair, hugging his white robe tightly to his body as he waddles toward John.

"Have you ever had a facial before?" John asks once they're both in the room. It reminds Rodney somewhat of a doctor's office, not that he didn't already know the whole 'spa' thing was similar to voodoo. A long, single bed in the center of the room with a few sheets and blankets draped over it, some confusing-looking light-and-magnifying-glass contraption in the corner. The décor, of course, is wildly different, with accouterments of bamboo and other woods lining the walls, golden candles glowing softly on end tables.

"Do I _look_ like the type of person who has facials often?" Rodney snaps.

"No, not really," John returns easily. "But you're here, but I'm getting paid, so I'm not picky."

"Oh, ha ha, I'm glad you think you're so very funny." John raises an eyebrow and Rodney shifts uncomfortably in his robe. "Well, all right, if you _must_ know, my ex-girlfriend gave me the gift certificate several months ago. I probably wouldn't have used it, but somehow my boss found out about it a couple of days ago (probably the ex blabbed to her, she's just that type) and she ordered me to come here and do something 'relaxing.'" ('For all our sakes,' she'd followed it with, and Rodney scowls at the memory.)

"Well, if you're like this all the time I feel for your boss." John starts toward the door and Rodney begins to blurt a protest when John follows his previous statement with, "Okay, so I'll go wait outside while you undress and get on the bed."

" _What?_ " Rodney squeaks, backing up into one of the wooden end tables. "Undress? _Why?_ "

"It's regular operating procedure, Doc. But don't worry, you can leave your underwear on. Just hang the robe up on the hook and get under the sheet with your head on the end with the towel." John winks, and Rodney makes a choked gurgling noise. "I'll knock before I come back in." He steps out and shuts the door.

Extremely hesitantly, Rodney begins to divest himself of his robe, glancing nervously around the room as he does so. He's a little afraid it'll be chilly, but even when he's standing there in his boxers it's still quite warm in the room, and as he settles himself on the bed he realizes it's even heated. He mentally revises his initial assessment of the room to slightly above that of an examination room.

"All set?" John asks, poking his head in a few minutes later.

"Hey! You were supposed to knock first and _then_ come in!" Rodney protests, looking ridiculous as he glares while lying on the bed-table. "What if I had been indecent?"

"Relax, it's nothing I haven't seen before."

"That's not the point! It's--"

"Are you allergic to any medications, fruits, or vegetables?" interrupts John, fiddling with something Rodney can't see from his current position.

"What?" It takes Rodney a few seconds to process the question. "What, yes! I'm deathly allergic to citrus, one taste of it could _kill me._ "

"How about if it's on your skin?"

"Omigod," squeaks Rodney, "you _are_ trying to kill me, aren't you? Kavanagh or someone put you up to this, get me naked so I can't run away and then poison me with citrus, or, or... Or smother me to death with your insane hair!"

John has come around the front of the bed now and appears quite amused, though a little irritated. "What would I do, _stick my head in your face?_ " he asks, to which Rodney responds "You could!" flailing his arms a little before realizing that doing so causes the blanket to slide down his chest, at which he turns beet red and snatches it back up frantically.

"Don't worry," John says dryly, "I'll skip the face mask with the lime in it, just in case." He moves back out of sight; Rodney can hear him right above his bed. "Do you want scented or unscented oil? We've got lilac, chocolate--"

"Unscented, please," Rodney sniffs. And then-- "Hey! What's that!"

"Calm down. They're just cucumber slices."

Rodney squirms on the bed. "What, you mean people actually use those? I thought that was just in movies and things like that when they're making _fun_ of spas."

"No, Dr. McKay, people actually use them." There's a long pause as John lays strips of something else on top of the cucumbers, and since Rodney can't think of anything to say -- and why would he _want_ to be engaging this spa-guy in conversation, anyway? -- he keeps his mouth closed. (Also, he doesn't want to take the chance that John really _might_ be trying to poison him and could slip a bit of that lime stuff he was talking about in there.)

Finally, it's John who breaks the silence. "So," he said, "you said your ex gave you the coupon to come here, huh? Was that before or _after_ you broke up?"

"Um," says Rodney. He's finding it a little hard to think with John's hands moving lightly over his face. "I, uh. No, neither."

"Neither? How exactly did _that_ work?"

"She, um." Rodney blushes through whatever all John has piled on his face. "She gave it to me when she _broke up with me,_ okay? She-- Ow! That's bright!"

"Sorry," John says cheerfully, over Rodney's protests. "It'll only be for a little bit. It's a lighted magnifying glass, helps me figure out what kind of skin you've got."

"The kind that's probably going to fall off and never grow back once you're done with me," Rodney grumbles under his breath, but due to his closeness John hears him anyway.

After a few more moments John switches the light off, and everything's deeply black, little silver spots dancing in the darkness of Rodney's eyelids.

"I'm going to put some different products on your face now," says John as he fiddles around above Rodney's head again. "Don't worry, none of them have any citrus in them."

Rodney doesn't say anything in response -- John's hands are on his face again, stroking over his eyelids, cheekbones, around his mouth, moving in little circles to rub the cream (or whatever it is) into his skin. Rodney's body attempts to accelerate his heart rate a little when John's hands move closer to his lips, but he stops it through sheer force of will, because honestly, he wasn't attracted to people like this, _men_ who worked in _spas_ and had stupid hair and likely possessed an IQ smaller than their waist size...

"So, Dr. McKay," John interrupts Rodney's mental chastising, "you were telling me how your ex-girlfriend gave you spa coupons as a break-up gift?"

"It... It wasn't like _that!_ "

"Well, why don't you tell me how it was, then?"

 _He actually sounds interested_ , Rodney thinks, but then amends it with, _Well, sure, it's their job, isn't it, like hairdressers, they're supposed to pretend to care about your problems._ (Not that Rodney had ever had a regular hairdresser to know about this from personal experience, but Katie had told him about hers on a few occasions, and gosh, _he_ could barely listen to Katie complaining about her idiotic botany colleagues without falling asleep, and he had the added benefit of getting to sleep with her.)

"Rodney," John prompts, and Rodney realizes he must have gotten lost in thought. The feel of John's hands on his face _was_ remarkably relaxing after all (though not erotic in the slightest).

"Ah, sorry. Yes, she, um. Well, we dated for six months or so, and then one day, just, out of the blue, she blew up at me during dinner, saying that it was over and that, um," Rodney coughed, "that she was sick of trying so hard to make the relationship work and to make me happy and of me never noticing anything. And then she stormed out."

John pauses in his ministrations. "How does the gift certificate fit into that?"

"Oh. Well, she, um, threw a lot of things at me before the actual storming-out. Some of the contents of her purse, the facial things, most of the salad... Hey! It's not funny!"

"Sorry, sorry." Rodney can feel John shaking with laughter through his fingertips. "You have to admit it's a little funny, Dr. McKay. She threw _spa coupons_ at you."

Rodney smiles despite himself. "Well, it wasn't funny _at the time,_ anyway. But I suppose in retrospect it's not nearly as painful."

"I'll bet those paper cuts were a real bitch," John's voice drips with sincerity, though Rodney sees right through it.

"Hmph. In the end it was for the best, I suppose. My productivity is much higher when I don't have to waste all that time on making a relationship work. Besides, botany and astrophysics never made good bedfellows. Not counting Feynman, anyway, but he was anomalous in more ways than that."

"Plus," adds John helpfully, "the ladies loved him."

"Oh, _please,_ " Rodney snorts derisively, "like you even know who Richard Feynman _is._ "

"Sure," says John. "Brilliant physicist and safe-cracker extraordinaire. I heard him speak at a seminar once."

"A _seminar_? In what, exfoliating creams?" Rodney could be imagining it, but he thinks he feels John's fingers push into his face a little harder than necessary at that.

"No, modern physics, _Doctor_ McKay," John says snidely.

Rodney snorts. "Sure, I can just imagine _you_ at a seminar on theoretical physics."

"Well," the other man drawls, "I _did_ major in math with a minor in physics, but I can see what you mean."

"But!" Rodney sputters. "But you-- That's ridiculous! You're a, a spa-boy!"

" _Spa boy?_ " echoes John incredulously, but Rodney steamrolls ahead, cutting him off.

"Why in the world would you ever become a, well, whatever you call someone who gives _facials_ if you have a degree in _math?_ There are plenty of stupid people out there who I'm sure would be more than willing to work in spas in order to prevent the people capable of work that's actually important from _wasting their brains._ "

"...wow," John's voice is fairly flat. "You know, Dr. McKay, I don't think I've ever met anyone with the ability to insult so effectively without even trying."

"I--" And what is this: Rodney finds he actually feels guilty for some obscure reason, which is ridiculous, because it's not like anything he said was un _true_. "It wasn't an insult, it was a compliment, obviously, I mean, you said you _majored_ in math so I assume you actually did graduate, and where did you go?"

"UC Berkeley," John says, "and in _that_ case, you really need a refresher in the difference between a compliment and an insult." Then he adds the kicker: "I'm not surprised your girlfriend broke up with you."

Really, there's a dozen things Rodney could say as a comeback to that, but for some reason he can't seem to move his mouth to get any of them out (and it's not because of the gunk on his face). He wishes abruptly that he could erase the last few minutes of their conversation, go back to John's hands moving easily over his cheekbones, but the air is thick with tension.

"Okay," John once more breaks the silence after five minutes or so have passed. "The mask has got to set for a little while. Want me to massage your hands and arms while we wait?"

"Um," says Rodney, thinking, _Maybe this will help clear up the hostility a little._ "Yes, sure."

Unfortunately for him, it is perhaps the worst idea in the history of bad ideas, because first, John shifts around to the side of the bed to pull Rodney's arm from under the blanket where he is (mostly) _naked!_ and then he starts in on the massage, and wow, it becomes a little more apparent to Rodney why John has this particular job -- because he's really, _really_ good at it.

John's deft fingers travel, covered in something slick and warm, up each of Rodney's own arms, moving along the soft flesh of his palm and rubbing out spots wound tight with tension (not Rodney's fault if the department is too cheap to invest in proper computer equipment) in soft, sensuous circles. As he progresses up the arm, John puts more of his hands into it, pressing palms into the inside of Rodney's elbow, dragging his nails ever-so-slightly along the sensitive part of his bicep. Rodney gives up on trying to keep either his heart rate or breathing under control.

"I was going to go on," John says suddenly, "get my master's or PhD. Maybe go into research of some kind. I had wanted to be a pilot when I was younger, fly jets, but one year in the Academy broke me of that dream. The armed forces mindset just wasn't for me."

Rodney swallows, not wanting to say anything that might ruin the moment. (That, and John's hands, still stroking his fingers and inner arm, seem to have made speech slightly difficult right now.)

"So, I transferred to Berkeley. My parents were _thrilled,_ let me tell you. The fact that I stayed with math seemed to appease them a little bit, but then in my senior year I met this girl who introduced me to massage. By the time I graduated she'd convinced me to chuck academia." John pulls his hands away from Rodney, who almost protests, but then John says, "All right, I'm finished with your left arm," and slides Rodney's hand into some kind of plastic bag.

"Uh," Rodney says, hearing John move around the table. "Well, you're, um, you're very good. At it, at massage, I mean. Are you, um, I mean, is there some kind of certification for that?"

"Yes," John starts on Rodney's other arm, and the physicist's breath hitches. "I went to school, got plenty of training, and am a certified massage therapist and skin care technician. Or, if you like, a masseuse/aesthetician." One of John's arm's brushes against the blanket covering Rodney and the prone man shivers at the contact. 

"I-- Look, I'm sorry about what I said earlier," Rodney stammers. "I really didn't mean to offend you, or anything. It's just that my mouth tends to get away from me, and, uh, I'm not really good at the whole, you know," he waves his bag-covered left hand in the air, "thing."

"The whole ...thing?" There's a teasing note in John's voice that makes Rodney's heart skip a few beats.

"Er, you know, the whole small-talk thing. Or social interaction in general, I suppose. In case you hadn't guessed, it's not my, um, strong suit."

"That's okay, Dr. McKay. I'd figured as much."

Rodney can't help letting a little disappointed sigh escape as John appears to finish with his right arm. "You know," he blurts, as John bags this hand as well, "you can, um, call me Rodney, if you want. When I snapped at you before, I didn't mean to imply that you, uh, had to call me by my last name or title or anything like that. It's just that some people, um. I mean, considering the caliber of my work and the fact that I'm the one holding the whole program up--" He abruptly aborts that train of thought.

"And social interaction isn't really your strong suit," John finishes for him, and Rodney blushes and says, "Yes, that."

"Yeah," John says, repositioning himself above Rodney's head, "academia can be stressful like that. I prefer helping people feel good and get rid of some of that stress, rather than help cause it. Speaking of which," and Rodney nearly jumps out of his skin when John's warm hands suddenly touch down on his bare shoulders, "if you want, I can do a little work on your neck and shoulders here, help you out with that."

"I..." Rodney's brain stops processing with John's thumbs are rubbing lazy circles into the spaces under his shoulder blades. "Yes, um, okay."

It's a little like heaven, even better than the massages on his hands and arms, because John's hands are so _warm_ and big and knowledgeable, moving in patterns that seem almost aimless but are actually perfect, because Rodney can feel all the stress melting off him as John works his magic. Only, with that melting, something else seems to be rising, and Rodney finds himself turning what must surely be a brilliant shade of red under the stuff on his face, wishing to everything that he'd worn something more restrictive than boxers today.

And then John's leaning over Rodney's face, upside-down, and Rodney can feel the other man's breath lightly on his skin. "All right, Dr. McKay?" John asks, and this time the title is used teasingly, and Rodney damns evil botanist ex-girlfriends, and their spas, and the impossibly gorgeous math-major skin technicians who apparently populate them.

He tries to answer the question, but all Rodney can manage is a choked-off little gasp.

"You know," John leans in even closer, the tips of his hair tickling Rodney's cheek slightly, "generally I'd offer to help you out with that, but I don't know if I can do that for someone who insults my intelligence and choice of profession so easily."

"You!" Rodney forces out, voice strangled and tight, "I.. Are you -- oh my god -- are you implying that you, is this--"

"Part of the regular service package?" John's voice is husky as he trails his lips over Rodney's ear. "Okay, no, it's not. I just have a thing for bossy astrophysicists, I guess." Rodney stops breathing altogether and is about to attempt a response (somehow he'll manage it without air, even if that is physically impossible) when John abruptly removes his hands from Rodney's shoulders and pulls back.

"Hey!" Rodney protests, "What are you--"

"All done," John announces cheerfully, cleaning off Rodney's face with a damp cloth. "I'll leave the room so you can get back into your robe."

"But-- Hey!" exclaims Rodney, but John's already skipped out the door and closed it behind him. Rodney doesn't move for a few moments, trying to will his body back under control; finally, he calls up a picture of Kavanagh (naked) and that seems to do it. He shudders and drags himself off the table, clumsily working his way back into his terry cloth robe.

John is nowhere to be seen in the spa waiting area, and when Rodney stumbles out to the front desk after changing, he's not there, either. Something cold and sick rears up in his stomach: Of course, what was he thinking? No one that good-looking could possibly be interested in him. _Oh well, it's for the best. Not like I need that kind of distraction again, anyway._

"Rodney McKay?" asks the young woman at the counter. "Yes?" Rodney answers morosely, and she says, "Did you enjoy your treatment? We accept Visa or MasterCard, and gratuity is included."

He ignores her question, handing over the card without comment and letting her ring it up. 

"Oh, wait!" she calls as he turns to go after signing the receipt, and Rodney turns back and snaps, " _What?_ " He's irritated and wants to go home, to feed his cat, do some work, and forget all about spas and their employees.

"Your aesthetician, John, said to give this to you." The woman hands him a card, and Rodney stares at it: It's another gift-certificate, a thick card of the same kind Katie had chucked at him, only on the front where the amount or treatment should be written, it says, "VOID." On the back is a string of ten digits.

"Oh," Rodney says, and the cashier grins at him. In a confidential voice, she says, "After all, it's just not right to consort with a customer during business hours."

Rodney smiles to himself all the way out to his car.

(He calls John at seven that evening, and they go out to dinner the next day.)


End file.
